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5 books everyone must read before they die


Electrophile

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....yes, this entire thread is stirring up enough motion to actually do nothing but read.........

what's life without emotions..........its' food for the soul......... :D

I actually remember crying in grade 2 when I read The Giraffe the Pelly and me by Roald Dahl... I have no idea why but there's a poetic finish and it used to bring a tear to my little eye! hehe

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I haven't read all books that are worth reading, for sure, but the most important up tp now:

1. On the road - Jack Kerouc

2. The catcher in the rye - JD Salinger

3. The water-method man - John Irving

4. Siddartha - Hermann Hesse

5. Poems - Li Tai Po

I LOVED John Irving! That was a great book - I haven't read anything by him in a long time but his early stuff I really enjoyed.

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I have just finished reading a book called The Song Reader. It was pretty good, but I wouldn't call it a must read. I got it at the book fair which brings me to the realy point of my post. I bought One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest and Slaughter House Five. They both looked really good, but which should I read first?

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I don't really think there are any books that everybody must read, but there are of course books that I think are truly great and would recommend to people - and that I have recommended to people.

Lols. I think it's a must that someone learns to read in their lifetime. I agree with you that there arnt any books that everybody must read - except perhaps even just to browse the Holy Bible or Koran or whatever their beliefs call it. It's nice to know what everybody else is reading. I am a fan of William Faulkner, and some of those mentioned already.

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Really? I'm curious how.

well to me, and this may be just a personal thing, but I can't stomach Tolkein because he wants to tell me who's good and evil, and he casts his characters in such an absolute dichotomy so as to prevent you from seeing them in any other light other than how he wants you to see them. And even though his creations are so finely detailed and exact, I find underneath it such a naive view of his characters emotions and morality that deeply disappoints me. It's all just pure fantasy, there's nothing revelatory in it for me whatsoever.

I mean the parallels he could've drawn between his characters and humanity, and the examinations possible by juxtaposing the two, it could've been brilliant, but there's just so much a sense of "the cute ones are good, the ugly ones are bad"

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well to me, and this may be just a personal thing, but I can't stomach Tolkein because he wants to tell me who's good and evil, and he casts his characters in such an absolute dichotomy so as to prevent you from seeing them in any other light other than how he wants you to see them. And even though his creations are so finely detailed and exact, I find underneath it such a naive view of his characters emotions and morality that deeply disappoints me. It's all just pure fantasy, there's nothing revelatory in it for me whatsoever.

I mean the parallels he could've drawn between his characters and humanity, and the examinations possible by juxtaposing the two, it could've been brilliant, but there's just so much a sense of "the cute ones are good, the ugly ones are bad"

Thanks for sharing your thoughts as I was curious. I hear what you're saying - I see it a bit different. Most books of this genre present characters who are good and evil. Sometimes despite their being evil, you can be drawn to them or find something that you see some good. People (or characters in this case) tend to be perceived as cute or beautiful when their inherent nature is good, kind etc. and thus the opposite would be so. I do agree that he created his characters and stories with incredible detail but I don't see it as naive on his part (again, just my thoughts here). The whole theme of sacrificing one's own needs for the greater good of mankind - never giving up no matter how overwhelming the odds are, was pretty powerful to me.

Did you see the movies as well? I thought they were well done but I definitely thought the books were much more intense.

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Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison by Prochnicky, Jerry

I bought this book at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago. It is a very good book. Lots of insight into Jim's psyche. It explains his motivations as to why he did some of the things that he did, his self-destructive tendancies, and his inner demons.

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The whole theme of sacrificing one's own needs for the greater good of mankind - never giving up no matter how overwhelming the odds are, was pretty powerful to me.

Did you see the movies as well? I thought they were well done but I definitely thought the books were much more intense.

Well you see to me Lord Of The Rings is a morality tale, and they don't really interest me , I mean it all comes down to what you're reading it for, and, like Buz Lurhman films, LOTR just doesn't do it for me.

I did see the films, and they tried to cram so much into them that it looked like a 3 hour Chivas Regal commercial to me.

The only things I enjoyed about the films were how good Ian McKellen was (he was the only person who could deliver all that clunky shakespearean-esque dialogue and not look absolutely amateur) and David Wenham who is a truly great but not fully recognized Australian actor.

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Well you see to me Lord Of The Rings is a morality tale, and they don't really interest me , I mean it all comes down to what you're reading it for, and, like Buz Lurhman films, LOTR just doesn't do it for me.

I did see the films, and they tried to cram so much into them that it looked like a 3 hour Chivas Regal commercial to me.

The only things I enjoyed about the films were how good Ian McKellen was (he was the only person who could deliver all that clunky shakespearean-esque dialogue and not look absolutely amateur) and David Wenham who is a truly great but not fully recognized Australian actor.

Exactly - if that sort of tale isn't to your liking. I thought the films were well done considering how much there is to each book and I'm sure it was tough to make creative decisions on what had to be omitted. That said, I thought what wasn't in the movie wasn't crucial to the overall storylines.

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The only things I enjoyed about the films were how good Ian McKellen was (he was the only person who could deliver all that clunky shakespearean-esque dialogue and not look absolutely amateur)

Ian is fantastic. I enjoyed Gollum also, but after those scenes I must have fallen asleep again. I don't remember much besides that. :blink:

Has anyone read "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold? Incredible story, but definitely not a lighthearted read.

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Ian is fantastic. I enjoyed Gollum also, but after those scenes I must have fallen asleep again. I don't remember much besides that. :blink:

Has anyone read "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold? Incredible story, but definitely not a lighthearted read.

Yeah, I read it after my boyfriend's mum recommended it to me. I liked it, but have to say it dragged on in parts, for me. Apparently, Sebold wrote the book after an ordeal she encountered whilst at University (also the inspiration behind her first book). I thought it was a clever device, having the narrator as the victim, focusing on her family on earth. But, I must admit, I did feel cheated in parts.

Hopefully the film will be good - isn't Peter Jackson behind it, as well?

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I had a very interesting discussion with some friends of mine about the importance of books and how a lot of people don't take voluntary reading very seriously once they're out of school. So we got to talking about the 5 books we thought everyone must read once before they die. This was my list:

1984

Flowers for Algernon

The Razor's Edge

Gravity's Rainbow

The Road

What do you guys think? You don't necessarily have to choose books, some of you may think plays or short stories are essential as well. I'm curious to see what you come up with because a lot of you strike me as being very well-read.

How's it going "Electrophile?" This is another good question. I have hundreds and hundreds of books that I love reading and it would be hard for me to narrow it down to just five. All of our fellow ZEPPELIN fanatics came up with some great choices. My five would be:

(1.) A SEASON IN HELL - Arthur Rimbaud

(2.) THE INNOCENTS ABROAD - Mark Twain

(3.) THE GOLD BUG - Edgar Allan Poe

(4.) KING JOHN - William Shakespeare

(5.) THE WAR OF THE WORLDS - H. G. Wells

There are so many more that I could have chosen but these would be my five books that I would highly recommend reading to anyone. ROCK ON!

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Another good book I remembered is Dante's Inferno, translated and edited by Mark Musa.

Also, Flowers in the Attic and all of the books in the Dollanganger Series by V. C. Andrews.

I read the Flowers in the Attic series when I was in high school and I enjoyed them a lot.

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You know talking about books or writing, well, lets say writing, that way I can segue into my story:

A friend of mine who edits a publication for an organisation asked me to write a piece for the christmas edition, and I did, and the organisation wouldn't publish it because they thought I'd stolen it from somewhere else :blink: they refused to believe I wrote it.

Which really only left me with two options:

either what I wrote was so brilliant (which it wasn't) that they couldn't believe I wrote it, or they think I'm a bit of a dumb shit who is not in the posession of the literary mental capabilities to write such a piece. I don't know whether to be flattered or hurt.

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You know talking about books or writing, well, lets say writing, that way I can segue into my story:

A friend of mine who edits a publication for an organisation asked me to write a piece for the christmas edition, and I did, and the organisation wouldn't publish it because they thought I'd stolen it from somewhere else :blink: they refused to believe I wrote it.

Which really only left me with two options:

either what I wrote was so brilliant (which it wasn't) that they couldn't believe I wrote it, or they think I'm a bit of a dumb shit who is not in the posession of the literary mental capabilities to write such a piece. I don't know whether to be flattered or hurt.

Let's look at it in a bright light and be flattered. congrats. :D

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